Valley Light Opera Company Organizing

The long line of showmen who have announced plans to bring major musical theater productions to the San Fernando Valley has a new entry.

David Hock, a Sherman Oaks-based producer, choreographer and dance teacher, has announced the formation of Valley Civic Light Opera and his plans to stage at least two musicals a year.

“There is no culture in the Valley. You just can’t find it here and that is ridiculous,” Hock said in explaining why he founded VCLO, whose nonprofit status is pending. “There is not one professional performing arts association. You can’t see a professional show in the Valley. The need is substantial.”

Hock’s planned cultural contribution is “Guys and Dolls,” which he hopes to stage at Cal State Northridge’s Campus Theatre in December for a three-week run, followed by “Man of La Mancha” in June, 1991.

Hock concedes he has a long way to go before VCLO gets a show on the boards. He estimates the first production will cost about $200,000, none of which has been raised. Through a fund-raiser and foundation grants, he hopes to raise at least $75,000 by July.

“Our anticipated ticket sales will make up the rest of the costs,” he said. “We will have no trouble selling out with the kind of stars I plan to put into the shows.”

Hock declined to discuss exactly which stars he hopes to hire, but he said they are “on the same level of a Juliet Prowse,” who is currently starring in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera production of “Follies.”

One of his problems was finding an appropriate theater for the venture. “There are no theaters large enough for musicals that are properly equipped,” Hock said. He settled on the 400-seat Campus Theatre with hopes to move on to the long-proposed performing arts center at CSUN.

Hock has never before run a theater company. His last theatrical credit was as the producer of the 1987 touring one-woman show, “Musical Feat.” He heads a Sherman Oaks-based dance company, Silver Lining, and teaches tap.

The last time large-scale musicals played the Valley on a regular basis was at a 2,800-seat theater-in-the-round in Woodland Hills. The Valley Music Center, as it was called, opened in 1964 with a production of “The Sound of Music,” followed by such shows as “Guys and Dolls,” “South Pacific,” “The Sound of Music,” “Oklahoma!” and “Camelot.” The theater also featured such non-musical offerings as Shirley Booth in “Come Back, Little Sheba,” Charlton Heston in “A Man for All Seasons” and even Judith Anderson in “Medea.”

But Valley Music Center went bankrupt after only two years. The building is now owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Since then several groups in the Valley have announced plans to stage professional musicals in revamped movie theaters and other large venues, but none of the plans has come to fruition.